Memories

On this day fourteen years ago, I said goodbye to my Dad. He'd struggled through weeks of serious illness, unaware of Christmas and New Year, but  the dark days of January were to beat him.
When we visited him in intensive care, there wasn't much of him to recognise through the tubes, lines and drips. But his hands lay over the covers and I will never forget them - so identifiable as Dad's. He had farmer's hands though he'd never been a farmer, reddened with the cold because he refused to wear gloves, strong and solid but bruised and scarred from his many DIY mishaps, and the part of him that is still with me in my mind.
My sister and I miss him a lot, but not half as much as Mum, who has had to make a new life without him.
We left him behind in the 20th century - he had never used a computer, a mobile phone or a video recorder, let alone a DVD player. He would have been gobsmacked that Mum now surfs the net on her laptop and watches DVDs.
He left me a legacy of his looks ( yes, I look in the mirror and see my Dad, while my sis looks in hers and sees Mum - guess who drew the short straw there!). But I think he also left me his cheerfulness, his smile and his poetic talents ( that's more than slightly tongue in cheek, by the way). He was reliable, hard working and eager to please.
He could tell us a good bedtime story when we were wee, made up as he went along, and he was always whistling in his own funny way.
So Dad, this is for you.